Castlevania Anniversary Collection (Castlevania Part 2 and Castlevania III Part 1) playthrough
1Well, I start the first bit off by killing Dracula to finish Castlevania 1. It took a fair bit of practice off line to get that timing down, and even then it was the second try that worked. He isn't that hard when you have the time to actually get the timing down. The problem is, you have to beat the rest of the game to even be able to practice him. And by then you could be worn down. It took me a while of practicing on and off off stream to finally get that timing right. Even with that, he could decide to just end you if he teleports on top of you. But, overall, it's not a bad fight at all. The entire game is doable, just challenging.
Enter Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. I was having a lot of fun with this game. They did turn the difficulty up, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Even the first stage can wreck you if you aren't careful. They have side characters you can play as as well, though I don't really like the one I have, the mage. So I haven't been using... him or her, depending on what version of the story you're familiar with. (This is the game from the Netflix animated series, after all.) The mage was very useful against the Mummies, but other than that? Meh? Most of the time has been with Trevor. And, as said, I was having fun.
Up until Stage 6. This is where things turned for me. The stage is difficult, that itself isn't the problem. The problem is the length. The stage is about twice as long as it really should be, based on the first game. So when you continue, you're set a good distance back. But worse, is this game really highlights a couple problems the game has that, yes, are frustrations of the game. First is that the whip animation has priority over everything else. If you try to jump, if you try to duck, those inputs will be completely ignored if you hit the whip again too early. And that's not good. Even if you've been holding down for crouching, if you whip too early Trevor will stay standing. So you can't really buffer crouching. That is AWFUL and has cost me many, many deaths in that stage. Beyond that, the stairs grab you from too far away when crouching or trying to use your sub weapon. And that can get you killed. It wasn't responsible for quite as many, but it still happens and it is frustrating when it does. That's not to say all the controls are bad. I really like that you CAN jump off the falling bridge portions as they fall. I was saved by that a couple times, and that felt really good. Also didn't get saved by that several times. But see, those I don't get mad at the game for. Those are I just didn't go fast enough. It's when I WAS trying to crouch, or use a sub weapon, and the game had other plans, that the game really frustrates me.
Having one-hit kills from the boss at the end of stage 6, so you don't have time to learn its patterns and practice it, before getting sent back to before the falling bridge or worse, having to continue at the beginning of that really long and frustrating stage... that hurts. That hurts a lot. One-hit kills on you when you're fighting against bosses are almost never fun. That's a great way to piss off your players. Don't do that. -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/the_nametag
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